As I am interested in career as a future data analyst/data scientist, it was nice reading the Furman Center for Real Estate & Urban Policy “Fact Brief: Rent Stabilization in New York City.” I’m a firm believer in looking at the quantitative information over the qualitative information to better understand an idea, and looking at the data for rent regulation policies were no different. There were a few surprises in the data that I would like to highlight.

  1. 47% of New York City apartments are rent-regulated! This was such a surprising figure as I would have thought that the number of rent-regulated apartments was more closer to say 20%. To have nearly half of the apartments in New York City be rent-regulated really emphasizes the enormity of the program. I think I was most surprised by this statistic because I have lived in a 2-family house my whole life, and so have a lot of my friends, and none of our houses were rent-regulated. Thus, it came as a shock to find out that nearly half of the apartments in New York City are rent-regulated.
  2. Even affluent neighborhoods such as Upper East Side and the Upper West side have plenty of apartments that are rent-regulated. One would expect simply the rich to live in these areas. Although the median-income for these areas are vastly greater than the rest of New York City, it was surprising to find that both neighborhoods cracked the top 10 Neighborhoods with the most regulated units.
  3. Whites have the largest percentage of those living in rent-stabilized units (35%). I think the idea that the primary beneficiaries of rent-stabilized units are minority groups probably stems from the media. Whenever I see an issue with rent regulation on the news or such, it’s always with minority figure. Thus, I was almost shocked to see that those from a white demographic had the greatest percentage living in a rent-regulated apartment.